


I know the end

by jewishfitz



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Angst with a Hopeful Ending, Gen, Grief/Mourning, I promise that this isn't as sad as the tags make it look!!, Mentions of Canonical Character Death, Post-Ancient Rome Sidequest (Rusty Quill Gaming)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-05
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:02:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27900463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jewishfitz/pseuds/jewishfitz
Summary: “The trees are not trees the birds are not birds and I am not me but just something that has been walking for a very long time…” – Jeff VanderMeer,Annihilation---After Rome, after everything, at the end of it all, Sasha walks on.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 13





	I know the end

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this a while back right after listening to the ancient rome sidequest, but didn’t post it because I wanted to wait until I had listened to the whole podcast. Now I’m all caught up, so here it is!  
> This is my first RQG fic, so keep that in mind (or don’t! I’m not your boss)  
> Title is from I Know The End by Phoebe Bridgers. Unbeta’d, all mistakes are my own.

When the dust settles, Sasha walks for a long, long time.

She walks because there is nothing left behind her. She walks because she doesn’t know what will happen if she stops walking, or if she even _can_ stop walking in the first place.

The landscape around her is blasted and empty, too close to the epicenter to be left unscathed, but far enough away that they’re probably not in any immediate danger, far enough away that if she keeps walking she’ll come upon something eventually.

Her throat hurts from screaming and from the ash that filled her lungs in the aftermath. It leaves an acrid taste in her mouth, burnt and ugly with destruction. It will linger for far longer than it should. In the years to come, when she is happy and safe, she will still wake sometimes with the taste of the apocalypse on the tip of her tongue. It will burn, and so will the tears that spring, unbidden, in her eyes. Even when she is happy, it will not stop. Such is the nature of grief.

As the sun sets, the rocks begin to cast long shadows, distorting and transforming the already alien landscape. It makes the hair on the back of her neck stand on end, makes her feel like she’s walking into a trap she can’t see or hear or smell or even begin to comprehend– it’s much too large, too incomprehensible. She’s being swallowed whole, by history and catastrophe and a million other things she doesn’t yet understand but that people will one day get degrees for writing about.

She thinks about Apophis, as her eyes slide over the featureless rocks and dirt that surround her on all sides. Smaller than the others, smaller than when she last saw him, _obviously._ Had he seen her? Probably not. He hadn’t heard her, in the end. But what would’ve happened if he had? Could it have changed anything? Could _they_ have changed anything, after all? Or was she always doomed to this slow march forward, time and space speeding past her in the opposite direction like strangers in a crowd.

They march on, Sasha and time, and for a single, terrible hour, she allows herself to wonder if any of it mattered after all. To ask herself if she has slipped through the cracks of history the same way she used to slip through sturdier things, doors and traps and comforting arms. To wonder if she left a trace, if _they_ had left a trace, because they couldn’t change it, any of it, in the end, no matter how hard she tried, how hard _he_ tried, and–

She gives herself an hour to wonder, and then she stops. She’d never wanted the history books to bare her mark, to tell her story. She would’ve been a horrible thief if she had. But she knows she’s left her mark in other ways, less concrete but infinitely more important. She’ll never know it, but Hamid will always think of her when he sees a particularly elegant dagger for sale, and Azu will always hear her reproaching voice when she makes a less-than-stealthy approach, and that Zolf will always remember her when he checks for traps before opening an unknown door. History will never tell her story, but the people who loved her will. 

Besides, she’s never cared much for books anyways. As long as the people that she- that she _cares_ about know that there was such a person as Sasha Racket, who walked and breathed and stole and hurt and laughed and _lived_ and _lived_ and _lived-_ well, the rest is sort of immaterial.

She walks forward, because she knows there is an end to all this, somewhere out there. Because she’s seen Rome, she knows the blast radius, she knows there’s a line somewhere between _destroyed_ and _survived._ She thinks that line might be the thing she’s been walking towards ever since she left Other London. The finish line. The ending.

But history doesn’t end. It continues. It marches forward, and Sasha does too. Maybe there will never be a line, a perfect place where someone will tell her that she can finally rest, where she can flip a switch and turn off all the ugly things that have made her who she is. Maybe no such place exists, not in that sense, not yet. But she can create it. She can walk until she finds a place that’s green, that has wide open skies, that has space to breathe. And when she gets there, she can carve out a refuge, a safe haven, a place to spend the rest of her life. She’ll use a dagger if she has to.

With a start, she realizes that might be what she wants. She’s been wandering for so very long. It’s startling, to suddenly know where she’s going.

And in a very real sense, she _does_ know where she’s going. She knows where _everyone’s_ going: forward, like always.

When she gets there, she’ll plant a tree for Grizzop. She thinks he would appreciate that.

History behind her and future ahead, Sasha walks forward, into the welcome unknown.

**Author's Note:**

> me, frantically rattling the bars of rq headquarters: alex does walter benjamin exist in the rqg universe alex does he exist has he been born yet alex I need to know this information for totally normal reasons alex
> 
> Find me on tumblr [@nojoyinmudville](https://nojoyinmudville.tumblr.com/) for more nonsense! No Thoughts Brain RQG


End file.
